You must have heard of this noise/feedback generator, patch that works in  SC3, which (admittedly) doesn't beat good rich electric guitar feedback, but can yield some interesting results.

http://www.illposed.com/software/rjktudor.html

for those that aren't aware of this patch, it comes with the following text:

       "DT phase shift/feedback network simulation
      phase shifters and "formant shifting" (ring modulation of hipass and lopass filter outputs)
   
      A little noise is used to activate the feedback.
      The basic approach seems to be to get some feedback oscillation and then
      destabilize it (so it is not a single tone) with the formant shifting, additional eq,
      and changing the mix of different degrees of phase shift.
      
      It is possible to filter the feedback path and then use the
      formant shifting to 'recover' lost hi frequencies.
   
      to play - start the basic patch and gradually increase 'rfbk' "
 
i found the best results to emerge from having 2 or 3 feedback patches up simultaneously, and by merely experimenting with the settings...

also, supermarket_sweep, have you tried using Pd : it's open source (as is Super Collider), works fairly well on windows, and could (if you programmed it that way) allow you to operate with banks of samples to occur purely, or manipulated, in whatever sequence you wanted. It's basically MaxMSP, without the cost, however it will cost a few nerves at the outset.
the best way into Pd is to arm yourself with a Max MSP handbook, either reference or tutorial. there's a reasonably good question/answer forum for your technical issues, and you can also find your way into the patches by using the help menu. i'm not a fan of the reference book by miller-puckette (inventor of Pd), which can also be downloaded, which is anything but a reference book...

I'd be interested to know if people have any preferences to OS/software when composing. The obvious answer
would have been whatever gives me the result I desire in the quickest time and is relatively hassle-
free. But I've heard some people say they want to feel as if they 'own' their own software on
their HD, which with some proprietary-software, and the elaborate security that these companies
impose, make you feel ever 'indebted' to the company -if you want to install on another computer, for
example.  I know of one US composer who refuses to use the foremost object orientated music software for
this reason; I feel the same about this and stopped using it six-seven years ago.

Considering the broader issues, this can lead to a discussion of copyright, or indeed copyleft.
In the world of 21st century composition are these questions as relevant to composers as, obviously,
they are to coders. Should this be a consideration before you begin work?
 
 
Quote from Richard M Stallman (Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M Stallman):

"One assumption is that software companies have an unquestionable natural right to own software and thus
have power over its users. (If this was a natural right , then no matter how much harm it does to the
public, we could not object.) Interestingly, the US Constitution and legal tradition reject this view;
copyright is not a natural right , but an artificial government-imposed monopoly that limits the users'
natural right to copy.

Another unstated assumption is that the only important thing about software is what jobs it allows you
to do - that we computer users should not care what kind of society we are supposed to have.

A third assumption is that we would have no usable software (or would never have a program to do this
or that job) if we did not offer a company power over the users of the program. This assumption may have
seemed plausible before the free software movement demonstrated that we can make plenty of useful software
without putting chains on it."

Our own (UK) Composers Desktop Project seems to have remained in a business model that is proprietary.
I'm sure they have thought long and hard about this issue, especially after early dealings with IRCAM(TM).

Any thoughts?

Does anyone here use Psycle (open-source software synthesizer)?

I stopped using MS Office when I learned about OpenOffice, and since then, the idea of being beholden to a software company because my files are in a proprietary format has become anathema to me.

In fact, it seems the hacking-and-cracking bandits have had similar thoughts: the latest electronic threat I heard about today is ransomware: an invasive program encrypts a users files, then demands a ransom to decrypt them.

Exactly. Experience has taught me:

• Don't use a "preview pane" to view email content before opening a message
• Don't execute any attached files that arrive with email without scanning for viruses first
• Have an up-to-date antivirus program

Having Trevor in Durham for the last two years has been an immensely positive experience.
He's given a real boost to electroacoustic music, with lots of students taking more risks.
He was also one of only three audience members who stayed for the entire duration of this summer's 'Music Marathon', performed almost entirely by IT.

Anyone tempted by the OHM+ set of 3 CDs and bonus DVD, titled "early gurus of electronic music", beware. It consists largely of shortish extract from representative works. Those few complete pieces included come mainly from widely available sources (Wergo, Mode, etc.). It's all very prettily presented, but frankly, not what I was hoping for. It's basically a glorified sampler set.